VATICAN CITY
Reuters
BY PHILIP PULLELLA
Finn of Kansas City, who remained in office for three years after he was convicted in 2012 of shielding a priest who took pornographic pictures of girls, has resigned, the Vatican said on Tuesday.
Finn, 62, is the only U.S. Roman Catholic bishop to be convicted for not reporting suspicions of pedophilia. Groups representing victims of abuse by clerics had been urging the pope to dismiss Finn.
“Pope Francis’s removal of (Finn) is a good step but just a beginning,” said Anne Barrett Doyle, co-director of BishopAccountability.org, a resource center for sexual abuse of children in the Catholic Church.
“The pope must show that this decision represents a meaningful shift in papal practice, that it signals a new era in bishop accountability,” she told Reuters in an email. …
Barrett Doyle urged the pope to confirm that Finn was removed for failing to make children’s safety a top priority.
“That would be unprecedented, and it would send a bracing message to bishops and religious superiors worldwide that a new era has begun,” she said.
Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston, head of a commission advising the pope on how to rid the Church of sexual abuse, told CBS television last year that the Vatican “needs to address urgently” the question of why Finn was still in office.
Francis has also come under pressure to remove Juan Barros as bishop of the Chilean city of Osorno. Parishioners, national legislators and abuse victims have accused Barros of having protected one of the nation’s most notorious pedophiles.
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